


I Swear To God The Devil Made Me Do It

by bowlingfornerds



Category: The 100
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Office, Brotp, Destruction, Pranks, Roommates, because they're important, bosses suck, but instead like brotp, fun times as heck, literally no actual realationship, murphy and bellamy are best friends, office jokes, worlds best boss mug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 17:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4067677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowlingfornerds/pseuds/bowlingfornerds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the tumblr prompt:</p><p>“I had a really mean boss and so I quit by pulling a bunch of really extreme office pranks. that boss got fired like a week after I quit and you became the new boss and I want my old job back so now I have to sit with you and explain all the things I did when I quit”</p><p>TLDR; murphamy brotp+office+roommates who live together, prank together</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Swear To God The Devil Made Me Do It

**Author's Note:**

> I gave it a go because I love prompts and Murphy so here we are. I even made him a bit of an asshole. You're welcome.
> 
> This was also mildly inspired by the US Office, because office pranks are the only reason I watch that show.
> 
> Title from The Front Bottoms, I Swear To God The Devil Made Me Do It.

Bellamy had plans. Really, really big plans. Bigger than the small walls of the office he worked in, selling paper and office supplies. Bigger than the structural supports of the four storey building, that he really didn’t trust not to collapse at any moment. And certainly bigger than his asshole of a boss, Mr Jaha.

Bellamy couldn’t even pronounce Jaha’s first name, let alone spell it, so he never bothered to learn it. And after three years of working at Office Co., he didn’t really remember how it sounded. He’s fairly sure it began with a ‘T’, and had a very biblical feel about it, but he never went further than that.

Jaha was a dick, to be blunt. He was always late, yet yelled at any employee who was, too. He scheduled early morning and late night meetings, always raised the quota and fired people for absolutely inane reasons. He was hell incarnate. And Bellamy was tired of it.

He had wanted to be a History professor all of his life. He loved mythology and the ancient world; Romans, Greeks, Egyptians – it was his comfort zone. Selling staplers was not. The only reason he wasn’t living his dream was because of the price it would cost for the education. Sure, he had his original degree, but after the bar he worked at closed, and the school he was a janitor for cut costs, working at Office Co. was his only option – and he had nonflexible hours that left no time for studying.

Octavia told him to quit.

Murphy told him to quit.

Jasper, Monty, Lincoln (although he wasn’t listening to Lincoln right now, seeing as his ‘friend’ made the call to start banging his sister) told him to quit.

And yet he hadn’t.

He was still working the nine to five shift, five days a week, selling staplers and pens, rulers and paper. And he was tired of it.

Enough was enough.

When he announced to his friends that he was finally going to quit, a cheer sounded out across the room. He grinned (not at Lincoln, though. Never at Lincoln) and leaned back into the sofa, taking a swig of his drink. Next to him, sat Murphy. John Murphy had been fired approximately two years beforehand, for a reason that involved absolutely destroying the office after growing fed up of it. He legitimately destroyed the place.

Murphy was somewhat of a self-proclaimed criminal mastermind, and had cut all of the cameras cords before taking his baseball bat to the office. It had never been proven to Jaha and the police that it was him to have wrecked the place, but Bellamy knew it was his roommate. Really, because Murphy walked home that night with Jaha’s prized ‘Best Boss’ mug – the same one that was currently sat on the counter in the kitchen.

Since his departure from the company, Murphy had actually enjoyed his life a bit more, constantly insisting for Bellamy to join him in setting up the new bar, replacing the old one of ‘The Ark’ with ‘The Dropship’. (Bellamy was still unsure about the name, but he was willing to work with Murphy, after noticing that his roommate had actually come up with a decent business plan, and not just fucked about until the last minute.)

So Murphy was the first to slap him on the shoulder, grinning. “Told you, man – feels great, huh?” Bellamy nodded. The prospect of leaving that hellhole felt amazing, and he was sold on it. Only, he wanted to go out with a bang, and when he told this to his friend, Murphy grinned.

“Oh, you came to the right place,” he said, an evil glint in his eye. Bellamy watched Murphy warily for a moment, before he was passed his friend’s beer. “I’ve got to get something.” Murphy stood up, stepped over Jasper (who was playing Mario Kart at their feet) and rushed into his bedroom. Only a few seconds later, he came back out with a blue binder.

Jasper paused the game and they all looked up at Murphy, as he showed them the binder. ‘How To Fuck About With Office Co.: A Guide’ was written on the front, neatly typed. Bellamy raised his eyebrows at his roommate, who was almost giddy with happiness (and Murphy rarely smiled, so Bellamy made sure to savour the moment).

“I’ve been waiting for two years for you to want to leave,” he said. “Two long years of planning, all ready to be put into action and then burnt – to destroy the evidence.”

“And what is that exactly?” Monty asked from the floor at Lincoln’s feet.

“This, obviously,” Murphy rolled his eyes, sneering slightly. “Is every prank and plan I have been waiting to help Bellamy to pull on that office before he quits.”

“That’s insane,” Lincoln tells him.

“That’s _brilliant_ ,” Bellamy shoots back.

 

Three days later, Bellamy is stepping through the office alongside his colleagues. He is amazed to see his handy work in the light, two years of Murphy’s planning well spent on his departure. From the walls, toilet paper and silly string hangs (most impressively, across the windows of Jaha’s office in the shape of the words ‘fuck you’). The desks are piled up or missing (he knew that they’d be found in the toilets, or, in one case, half out the window of the conference room) and the computers are all turned on, with a ten hour loop of Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ playing at different times.

He’s impressed. He’s proud. He’s grinning like a maniac as the co-workers look around in wonder and groan. They’re standing there for a good ten minutes before Jaha walks in (enough time for Sinclair to open one of the desk draws, and find all of the calculators, staplers and notepads stuck in jelly).

Bellamy watches, pleased, as Jaha slows to a halt, staring at the room with wide eyes and a hanging mouth. In his cockiness, Bellamy even wanders over to him, and uses two fingers underneath his chin to close his boss’s mouth.

“You’ll catch flies,” he says, smirking.

Jaha says something quietly, anger straining through his voice. Bellamy hears him perfectly, but asks for him to repeat it anyway. This time, Jaha shouts. “Who did this?!”

The workers look at each other, waiting for the perpetrator to own up. Bellamy looks around, too, to see if anyone else sees their way out. He looks genuine for a moment before jumping and placing a hand to his chest.

“Oh! Right!” He lifts his hand up. “That was me.”

Jaha’s eyes practically burn a hole in his skull, but he doesn’t care a single bit. “Blake,” his boss says, eerily quiet and angry. “My office. Now.” Jaha turns to his office and stops, shocked, at the words on the window, before glaring at Bellamy, who shrugs.

“I’m cool to do this out here,” he says. He waits for the words. They’re silent for a moment, staring at each other. Jaha’s look is full of anger and hatred, while Bellamy’s is taunting and relaxed. He waits to be fired; he’s looking forward to it.

“Blake, this is massively offensive,” he grounds out. Bellamy nods, pleased. “I have no choice but to fire you!” Bellamy grins and bows.

“Thank you, thank you very much.” He looks around the room once more, pleased with his handy work – some of which they’re yet to find – and practically skips out of the door.

-

That night, there’s a celebration. Since the only good bar in town is closed, and Murphy and Bellamy are yet to open theirs, his friends are seated around his living room once more, all holding beers up in a toast.

“To Bellamy,” Murphy says, standing up. Bellamy knows that he didn’t want to make the toast, but was more pressured into it than anything. “Who finally found the good fucking sense to get out of there.” They clinked bottles and cheered, and as Murphy sat back down next to Bellamy, they smiled at each other.

“Couldn’t have done it without you, man,” Bellamy said, raising his bottle to him. His roommate nodded.

“You couldn’t have. We both know you wouldn’t have managed to carry the desk to the window by yourself.”

-

So, finding work was difficult. He knew that his last job would give him a bad reference, and the school year had already started, so he couldn’t join the local university to get his Masters (he decided to apply for the next school year instead). Bellamy and Murphy weren’t behind on rent, but they were cutting it close. So, while they refurbished the bar that Murphy had bought, they had other jobs.

Murphy, in particular, was working with his uncle. Both of his parents were dead but his uncle had always been fairly nice to him – the one relative who didn’t blame the kid for his parents’ death. His uncle was a plumber, so Murphy worked most days with him. He had suggested to his uncle for him to hire Bellamy – but the business wasn’t doing well enough for another worker.

This meant that Bellamy went to every single interview he could.

The week after quitting Office Co. was tough. Every day had at least two interviews – even with places he didn’t really want to work at, like McDonalds. But, each time, they mentioned that they’d called up his last place of  work, and even though he’d been there for three years, they couldn’t hire him because of the way he left. Bellamy didn’t regret it though. Sure, people didn’t really want to hire him after that – but Jaha deserved it.

Then, after about six days of job searching (and helping Murphy at night to rebuild the bar and order tables and chairs), he caved. The job market was tough, and building a bar cost a lot of money – even with the loan they’d received from the bank. He needed a job and he needed one quickly. At least something that would pay the rent.

Then, in the morning, he picked up the newspaper from the kitchen counter, and went through the job listings, like the day before. His eyes skimmed down the list until he saw it.

“Did you see this?” He asked as Murphy walked in. His roommate was taking a sip of his coffee from his Best Boss mug – a sight that always made Bellamy smile, even just slightly.

“See what?” Bellamy looked down at the paper and read out the job listing.

“’Office Co. in search of an experienced salesman. One position open under new management.’” Bellamy looked at Murphy and his roommate shrugged.

“So what? They were gonna’ hire someone new anyway. Probably a janitor – I don’t think bleach, spray paint and toothpaste comes out of walls very easily.” Bellamy shook his head, pointing back at the listing with his finger.

“It says ‘under new management’,” he insisted. Murphy shrugged.

“Good. It’s about time Jaha got fired.” As he spoke, Murphy walked over to the sink, tipping away the remaining slugs of coffee, before rinsing it with water and leaving it on the side.

“Murphy, I need a job-“

“No,” came the instant reply. “You can’t go back there! I spent two years planning on the way to get you out, and we had a pretty good paper-smoke-flavoured barbeque after! They wouldn’t hire you again, anyway.” Bellamy sighed, knowing Murphy was right.

“But, can’t I at least go back in and see what it’s like with the new boss?” Murphy shook his head, adamantly.

“No, no you can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s disrespectful.” Bellamy scoffed, rolling his eyes.

“Disrespectful? You wasted your time thinking of pranks and even trashed a fucking office building! Twice! You’re not one to talk.” Murphy glared at him, and the anger rolling off of him was scarier than that of Jaha. Murphy wasn’t really a self-acclaimed criminal. He was self-acclaimed, but we’re all aware that he probably killed a man a few years back, and he had a fairly dangerous history. Bellamy had never skirted around the truth for him, but he knew that he could easily cross a line, and end up in a ditch somewhere. He was suddenly afraid that it would be coming sooner, rather than later.

Murphy stalked up to him – and Bellamy didn’t know how he managed it in three steps, but he did. His voice was low and angry, and Bellamy had never felt more afraid for his life before this moment (even counting when Murphy actually told him what he had done over a year ago, and then became so afraid that Bellamy would tell, that he threatened him not to).

“You’re so fucking ungrateful,” he told him. “Don’t bother turning up at the bar tonight, and don’t bother speaking to me again, because you and I are finished.”

“What? Because I want to go back to my old job?” Murphy scoffed, shaking his head.

“Don’t play dumb!” Murphy’s voice was raised now. “You have been complaining about that place for three years! Before I even moved in here, I knew you hated that place! And I went and came up with a great way to end it for you, and you were even _happy_ about it, just yesterday. And now, just because there’s a different boss, you think you can turn around, waste all of our hard work, and make the last three years fucking irrelevant.”

“The last three years aren’t irrelevant!” He protested.

“Well they might as well be,” Murphy scowled, stepping back. Then, without another look, he turned on his heel and walked straight out the front door, slamming it as hard as he could. Bellamy let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He recognised the scowl well, and he knew how difficult it was for Murphy not to punch him (an unfortunate night out, where Bellamy was high incapacitated and Octavia was been leered on by an older man was the first showing of that look – however, it disappeared quickly, with a pool of blood on the ground, and Murphy’s arms around Octavia, guiding her home, with Bellamy the other side of him, noticing not a single scratch on his roommate’s face).

-

Even though he knew Murphy was probably going to attack him (or just switch the salt for the sugar, or maybe invite his friend’s dog over to relieve itself in his bed), Bellamy decided to go to the interview. He was surprised, when he walked in, hands in his pockets, that the majority of the room was back to normal. There were a few looks from his ex-co-workers, but other than that, it was as if he had never been there. Apart from the line of interviewees, though.

He waited his turn quietly, slowly coming to the realisation that he didn’t actually want his job back. He always knew he didn’t – but it seemed like an offer he couldn’t pass up. Bellamy reminded himself to add that to his apology for Murphy.

After what seemed like an eternity, a woman stepped out of Jaha’s old office. Her clothes were very professional, and looked very expensive, and her blonde hair was neatly tied back. “Bellamy Blake,” she called out. If any of the workers hadn’t noticed he was there, they did now, and he smirked at the faces from the desks. He didn’t regret putting their stationary in jelly.

The second the woman walked back into the office, he followed, a smirk plastered on his face and his hands still in his pockets. He could have left. But, really, he wanted to brag. So he shut the door behind him, and smiled at the poster on the wall, where the bleach had seared through the paint. He shook her outstretched hand across the table and sat down.

“My name is Clarke Griffin,” she said, her voice stern. “And I have taken over from Thelonious Jaha – who I’m sure you knew.” She knew who he was, and he couldn’t resist smiling. “Now, I grew up with his son, so I’m close to the family, and when he announced that he was leaving the company, he recommended me as his successor.” So he hadn’t been fired? Shame.

“And I,” she continued. “Would like to know what exactly you’re doing back here, and if I have to file a restraining order, in case this becomes a regular thing.” Bellamy smiled, leaning back in his chair.

“Well, although I still need a job, I came just to see what you would be like.” Clarke raised her eyebrows, and sat back in her chair – her posture still rigid.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re excused.” A rage fire burnt in Clarke’s eyes, and he couldn’t help but admit that he liked it.

“Mr Blake-“

“Call me Bellamy.” Clarke cleared her throat, annoyed.

“ _Bellamy_ ,” she started. “You and I both know that you’re not getting this job.” He shrugged, before putting on a mock pain.

“Not even after I was sales rep of the year?” He asked, a hand to his chest. Clarke faltered slightly, before glancing down at the file on her desk. Nevertheless, she continued on anyway.

“I’m about to kick you out of this building,” she warned.

“Go for it, Princess,” he said. Her eyes widened in anger, and she leant forward.

“ _Princess_?”

“I call it like I see it,” he responded easily. Clarke sighed, spinning the chair to look away from him. They remained in silence for a while, and Bellamy could hear the sounds of only the fan in the corner. He wondered if he should leave, and just as he was about to stand up, she turned back to him.

“My problem,” she started. “Is that every other applicant is a fucking dimwit. And even though you trashed this place, I’m still considering you for the job.”

“I don’t actually want the job,” he explained slowly and carefully. “I’m just here to revisit my handy work and see who replaced Jaha.” Clarke nodded, and he watched her eyes carefully, noticing the electricity of the blue.

“I’m fully aware,” she replied. “But there’s enough money in the budget to pay you more than you were previously earning, and you don’t have a job.”

“I have half of a job,” he protests.

“Half?”

“My roommate and I bought a bar.”

“Which one?”

“The Ark,” he replies, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair.

“Oh, yeah? In town? I was so bummed when that place shut,” she told him, leaning back in her seat. He nodded.

“Same here. So my roommate bought it, and we’re gonna reopen,” he explained. Clarke nodded, sighing before bringing the conversation back on track.

“For argument’s sake,” she says slowly. “Could you please explain the… _pranks_ you pulled on this office… all of the things that you did.” Bellamy paused for a second before shrugging.

“We tee-peed the hole place, inside and out, as well as used like twenty cans of silly string on this place. The window of this office had the words ‘fuck you’ on them. We came in a set all of the stationary in jelly, as well as stacked the desks-“

“Apparently one was found in the bathroom?” Bellamy nodded.

“Yeah, and one was half out the window of the conference room. In there, there was also a model of a decapitated head… we used a lot of fake blood for that one.” Clarke stifles a laugh, and gestures for him to continue. “A lot of the walls have… _obscenities_ written on them in bleach and spray paint. We added toothpaste just for the hell of it. And, there may have also been a ten hour version of ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ playing, but after all of the computers were stopped, we had also left one in the wall of the building on a constant loop. Other than that, there were a few fake hands and some eggs on the walls.” He shrugged. “It was all fairly tame if you ask me.”

Clarke actually laughed this time. She looked about as impressed as Bellamy was, and he could see that she wanted to have been there for it. After she reined herself in, she asked another question.

“You kept saying ‘we’?” He nodded.

“Me and my roommate. He used to work here, and he planned the entire thing.” Clarke nodded appreciatively.

“Well,” she said. “I know Thelonious would kill me for it – but if you want your job back…?” Bellamy paused for a second, before standing up.

“Nah,” he said. “That would be pretty damn ungrateful to Murphy. He spent two years on this masterpiece, and I don’t think I could actually go through with going back on myself.” Clarke nodded understandingly, standing up and shaking his hand.

“Well, thank you for coming in. And for telling me. Thelonious won’t breathe a word of it without swearing like a sailor, and my mother didn’t appreciate that.” Bellamy smirked and let go of her hand. As he headed for the door, he had a thought and turned back.

“When we reopen the bar, you should come by, Princess.” Clarke just smiled.

“Definitely.” Then, he turned, ripping down the poster and not even looking at the words on the wall as he left. _‘Fuck you Jaha and you’re the world’s shittest boss’_ was already imprinted in his mind as well as it was on the wall.

-

(Bellamy turned up the bar that night and told Murphy everything that happened. He didn’t forgive his roommate until he’d poured his entire can of Diet Coke over Bellamy, before saying it was okay. Bellamy asked to hug him, and chased him around for a while, and Murphy promised he could hug him later instead.)

(They hugged later, half drunk, and then again, when they opened the bar to the public.)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, please leave comments and kudos and I'll love you forever!
> 
> Make sure you talk to me on tumblr and tell me more prompts and if I suck or not.
> 
> Tumblr: BethanyInCandyland


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